Late Bloomers

Name: Late Bloomers
Director: Julie Gavras
Released: 2011

Julie Gavras

2011

Synopsis

Late Bloomers stars Isabella Rossellini and William Hurt as a married couple pulled apart by the threat of old age. Each reacts in a different way: Hurt’s distinguished architect chases after his glory days, while Rossellini’s housewife installs handrails about the house.

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Cast

Recommendations

75
New York Post
Moves at a poky pace even by American indie standards. But it's worth checking out for the fine cast, which also includes Joanna Lumley as Rossellini's earthy pal, and scene-stealing Doreen Mantle as her tart-tongued but wise mother.
70
Salon
An entertaining diversion, mostly because Rossellini and Hurt are a pair of seasoned and graceful pros who know how to work every line and every gesture, and it's great to see them playing characters who are exactly their age.
67
The A.V. Club
As a portrait of aging, Late Bloomers is a little too easy, but its cast makes it worth a look, even so.
63
Chicago Sun-Times
An uneven but touching comedy with a cheery score that sounds too much like whistling on the way past the graveyard.
60
Village Voice
She (Rossellini) is radiant in a profoundly ordinary and believable way, as always, and stirs up generational pathos all by herself.
60
NPR
The protagonists of Late Bloomers have a problem, but it's not that they're getting older. Their dilemma is that they're reacting so differently to aging.
50
The New York Times
As more characters, including the couple's three children - enter the picture, Late Bloomers loses its narrative thread and becomes so choppy that you have the sense that it was butchered during the editing process. What remains is the skeleton of a story that leads to an abrupt, icky-cute ending.
40
Variety
While the world could certainly use more films about characters entering their sunset years, a solution as toothless and saggy as Julie Gavras' Late Bloomers does little to help the cause.